Follow basic sausage preparation practices when making this sausage.
- Clean and Sanitize all of your equipment.
- Chill your meat to below 35F
- Keep your meat and grinder parts very cold while grinding
- Any liquid that is added to the mince needs to be ice cold
- Mix your very chilled meat and seasonings till the mince becomes very tacky
- Stuff the mince into sausage casings and prick out any air pockets
- Cook till the internal temperature reaches 155F
Here are a few things you might find useful when making sausage
- High Quality Natural Casings (AA Grade)
- Iodophor Sanitizer
- MK4 Thermapen (Accurate Thermometer)
- Chef Knife – KOTAI (for 15% off use discount code – 2guys )
- Sausage Pricker
- Meat Grinders
- Meat Mixers
- Sausage Stuffers
- Iodophor Sanitizer
- MK4 Thermapen (Accurate Thermometer)
- Sausage Pricker
- Stuffing Horn Cleaner
- Butcher Twine & Dispenser
- Small accurate Scale for spices
- Large Capacity Scale (33 pounds)
- Drying rack and tray
- Custom Cutting Board
Enjoy the video and the recipe. If you have any questions feel free to ask away. If you make this at home I’d love to hear about how it came out!!
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Cumberland Sausage
An English Sausage from Cumbria
How much do you want to make? 1000 grams
Ingredients
- 700 g lean pork
- 200 g pork belly
- 100 g pork back fat
- 50 g rusk
- 15 g salt
- 5 g white pepper
- 2 g dried rubbed sage
- .5 g dried thyme
- .5 g nutmeg
- .25 g mace
- 118 ml ice-cold water
Instructions
- Clean your meat of any silver skin, sinew, arteries and cut into small strips or cubes. Place in the freezer for an hour or until the temp reaches 32f – 34F.
- Grind your very chilled meat on a medium plate (6-8mm)
- Prepare all of your seasonings, rusk, and liquid and add it to your meat.
- Mix the meat till it becomes very tacky. If you grab a small handful it will stick to your hand if you hold your hand upside down.
- Stuff the sausage into a 28mm casing, form your meat into a coil, and let it rest overnight in the refrigerator.
- Freeze for later or cook till the internal temp reaches 155F. Enjoy
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Eric, I have a question not specific to Cumberland sausage but to the ingredient rusk. I’ve watched the Scott Rea Project out of the UK and he uses rusk in most of his sausages, while most recipies that I’ve seen from the US don’t use it. Many of them use powdered milk. My question is do rusk and powdered milk perform the same functions in a sausage? I believe both retain the juices, which my sausages sometimes lack, but do they noticeably affect the texture? I’ve noticed that English sausages seem to have a lighter texture that I find appealing. Would rusk or powdered milk make the texture of Italian sausage lighter while still maintaining the Italian sausage characteristics? One more question, would regular dried breadcrumbs or soda crackers be a good substitute for rusk?
You channel is awesome, keep up the good work,
although rusk and powdered milk do similar things the end results will be very different. Rusk tends to add a unique texture to the sausage that you won’t get from powder milk. You could use regular breadcrumbs. Rusk is favored because it doesn’t contain any yeast, but regular bread crumbs would work fine.
Can you provide the conversion from grams to teaspoons for the spices?
Sorry Tina I only operate in grams for these recipes. Matter of fact. When I see a recipe that I want to try and it’s in tsp I will usually weigh out all the ingredients to convert it so that the recipe can be more precise
This was my first attempt at making sausages and I’m honestly blown away at how delicious they turned out.
I couldn’t get hold of rusk here in Ireland but we have lots of Polish and Lithuanian grocery shops which stock a dried breadcrumb with a very similar appearance to rusk, so that’s what I used.
With ref to spicing, stick to the recipe for an authentic cumberland soss. I did think that it might have needed a bit more mace than the recipe said and added a smidge more….it didn’t need it.
I made 4 kilograms ( nearly 9 lbs) and saved myself a bomb on retail price plus these are a better quality, tastier product than anything I could buy from a shop.
If you are at all on the fence about having a go, do try. It’s absolutely worth it.
Thank you so much to this website for a great recipe.
Best wishes, Elaine
Thank you so much for such great feedback!!! Congrats on your success
Excellent recipe that, with the addition of extra liquid, onion and perhaps a tad more sage, makes a great foundation for sausage rolls.
This is your third recipe that I have tried, the others being biltong and your latest boerewors recipes, and have found all to be really good. Thank you for publishing these.
You are very welcome!! Thanks for the comment